Kurt Cobain: 20 years gone, but still connecting with youth

While Kurt Cobain'ssuicide 20 years ago today is the biggest thingthat many people remember about him, others say that Nirvana frontman's continuing impact on music and far beyond means he matters now more than ever.

• TIMELINE | Nirvana's rise in1989 to Cobain's death in 1994

While Cobain is often seen as a product of Seattle, he actually grew up about two hours away, in the decaying industrial town of Aberdeen, Wash.He sung about his early life of poverty in the song Something in the Way.

His parents divorced when he was young. As a teenager, he often withdrew.Onmany days, he found sanctuary under a bridge that crosses a muddy river in Aberdeen.He'd sit under it, play his guitar and write songs.

That bridge has become a site ofpilgrimage for thousands, who come to feel a sense of connection with Cobain.

In Aberdeen, by the bridge,CBC News recently foundJeremie Fisher, writing in his diary. Fisher, fromStrasbourg, France, explained why he felt the need to visit the site.

"He came from a broken home. He felt rejected. Yeah, I associate, because,I kind of lived the same things," Fisher said."For me, Nirvana is just the best band ever, whichchanged my life, or saved my life, even."

Author Charles R. Crossran a music magazine in Seattle in the early 1990sand put Cobain on the cover long beforehe was famous. Cross, who haswritten four books on Cobain, says Cobain had a very difficult childhood, but he railed against it.

"He did something that I think is quite admirable.He got off his ass and off that sofa in some little shack that he lived in [in] Aberdeen and he risked creating art.That, to me, is ultimately the reasonwhy we are most to admire him," Cross said.

"One of my favourite stories about the recording of the albumNevermind, an album that wouldsell30 million copies worldwide over the next decade, was that when Kurt returned home from the studio after recording that, all his material possessionswere in boxes on the curb. He had been evicted from his apartment in Olympia for not paying his rent."

"We root for an underdog, and if there ever was an underdog it was Kurt Cobain growing up in a shack in Aberdeen and going on to be the greatest star of his generation."

Cobain's heroin use onlyaccentuated the instability and depression he lived with most of his life.Cobain wrote in his suicide note that the world, including his young daughter,would be better off without him.

In the end, Cross believes Cobain's shocking actwas a powerful incentive fortroubled youthto take a different path.

"In some ways, the violent nature of Kurt's death and the way the media reported it took away some of the romanticism of his suicide and put a stark face on it. This was something that caused a lot ofpain tohis family, his friends," Cross said."I think he was a face of suicide and some people got help."

Nowhere has Cobain's legacy been more controversial than in the town where he grew up.

For 17 years after his death, Aberdeen City Council refused to acknowledge Cobain in any official way.

ResidentTori Kovacheventually took on the projecthimself.

"A lot of people in this town didn't feel he was an appropriateexample for the youth of thecommunity," Kovach said.

Along with his friend, Denny Jackson, Kovachcleaned up thearea near the bridge and turned it into a memorial park.

"I think people have come around to realize who the man was. I think, putting asideand stopping being hung up on the fact that he killed himself in such a violent manner and that he did succumb to drugs we claim him now as our native son and recognize him for the talent he is."

Underneath the bridge visitors find graffiti and notes written to the singerwith the same theme.

The rock star who killed himself is now viewed by many once-troubled, angst-ridden youthas the person who saved their lives.